They Say I Look Like Her

Resemblance is a strange concept. It overflows with subjectivity, devoid of neutrality or impartiality. Colored and formed in the image of past experiences. Reliant upon availability heuristics. They say I look like her. I don’t know how to understand that phrase. What does it mean to see yourself in others or them in yourself if […]

To Reunion or Not

Months ago, in therapy, I told Dr. R that I had some emotional fantasies about reunion allowing me to close a chapter in my life. Allowing me to move on to the rest of my life, clean and simple. In some ways not pursuing reunion feels like it is holding me back. Not being in […]

Daughter of the Ganges

There are others who have gone ahead of me, scouting, getting lost, running into demons and in some cases fighting them off and in others retreating in search of paths easier to travel. We take different perspectives to life. Our stories are like two rivers dancing, intertwined one moment and heading in opposite directions in […]

4 years

Its been 4 year since I started writing and within the last two months I have done more to help myself process than in the previous 27 years. I started out writing, reading and trying to expose myself to others’ stories. When I began I just needed to know I wasn’t along asn an adoptee. […]

“Calcutta is my Mother”

I sometimes stumble across stories of other Indian Transracial Adoptees who have gotten some press, usually because they are in some stage of searching. This most recent story is being made into the movie “Calcutta is my Mother” which from the short trailer: https://vimeo.com/168535931 seems less about the act of searching for birth/first family than an […]

The Search

I’m going to begin searching for more information related to my personal and familial history in India. Specifically, hoping to find information, traces, clues and people in India who either knew people I am biologically related to or that I share biology with. I just had to say this, you know, out loud to make […]

An Uncertain Beginning: Shattering Childhood Fantasies

For as long as I can remember I have known my birthdate is an approximation, not fact. At some point, when I was very young, my parents told me that it was unlikely that the records from the orphanage were accurate. They explained that it was common for orphanages to make up information, identifying information, in […]

Internalizations Gone Wild

I grew up assuming that I was adopted because my biological relatives could not take care of me. Implicit within that assumption was that they did not want to take care of me. I never found it to be very harsh. I just assumed that they were unable to care for me and so they […]